The Dialectic Between the Words of Men and Their Being

One of the fruits of taking much, regular alone-time with God is the morphing of irritation and even hatred of other people into real compassion. I have experienced and been aware of this for many years. Solitude with God takes any internal angry edge and smooths it out. This was confirmed to me today as I read some Thomas Merton.

In The Sign of Jonas Merton writes: "It is in deep solitude that I find this gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them... Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say. Now it is no longer a question of dishonoring them by accpeting their fictions, believing in their image of themselves, which their weakness obliges them to compose, in the wan work of communication. Yet there will, it is true, always remain a dialectic between the words of men and their being. This will tell something about them we would not have realized if the words had not been there."

Our love for others, as Christ's other-love is, cannot be based on peoples' words or consistency, just as I am inconsistent in that my words do not always match my being. Much solitude-time with God takes us deep into the being of God where love is pure and untainted by a lack of human integrity. God loves us because we are his children. Nothing can separate us from such love.

The "Kindness Circle"

The African-American museum
at Central State University

I'm prepping for Sunday's message, which is out of 1Thessalonians 5:1-11. I'm reading through this letter and coming across verses, though I've read before, seem new to me. Like 1 Thessalonians 5:15:

"Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else."

How kind am I? How kind have I been? In general, I think the further I go back in my life the less kind I have been. I've always been kind to Linda, for the most part. When I've been unkind I've always asked her to forgive me. And she's that way towards me, too. We always confess, forgive, and move on. And we love being kind to one another.

The further back I go in my life my "kindness circle" shrinks. Smaller is the group of people I am kind to. Sadly, I used to privately and sometimes publicly make fun of other people. To mock them. To stand above them and judge them. I have spoken negatively about people I don't even really know. Surely these are examples of unkindness.

Unkindness pays back wrong for wrong. You get wronged; you pay it back on the other person. Tit-for-tat; an eye for an eye. Unkindness breeds unkindness, which breeds more unkindness, and so on ad infinitum. Unkindness is spiritual cancer. Unkindness is... antichrist-like.

Paul is here addressing Thessalonian Jesus-followers. N.T. Wright comments: "Each Christian, and each Christian group or family, has the responsibility to look out for the needs of the others, to give comfort, warning, strengthening and example whenever necessary. It isn't enough to avoid trouble and hope for the best. One must actively go after ("pursue") what will be good for other Christians, and indeed for everybody." (Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, 132)

The kindness circle extends to all who claim the name of Jesus for themselves. If this were followed churches everywhere would be revitalized. But the real concern here is: me. A few months ago I was asked, in an interview, "What is the #1 problem you see in your community?" I amswered: "It's me." I was serious! If I change our community will be better and stronger. The old hymn does not sing "Change their hearts, O God..." Nor does it sing "It's them, it's them, it's them O Lord, standin' in the need of prayer."

I need to be kinder.

Does the kindness circle extend even to our enemies? Of course, because it includes you and me.

• You and I were once Christ's enemies. (Romans 5:10)
• God's kindness to us led us to repentance. (Romans 2:4)
• Christ is being formed in us. (Galatians 4:19)
• As fruit-bearing people attached to Jesus the Vine we produce kindness. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Christ included us in his kindness circle, and we were his enemies. Enough said?

The kindness circle extends not only to one's enemies, but also to those in your own home. If we don't show kindness to those in our own home our marketplace-kindness is fraudulent. The person who is unkind to their family members while opening doors for strangers is a fake. That's how I view it. Linda and I have talked about this. I don't want to treat others with kindness and not be so towards her. That would be so hypocritically weird.

Abide in the Vine, now.

Let the Spirit produce the fruit of kindness within.

Walk in kindness towards all. That's how wide and deep and long and high God's kindness circle extends.

A Few More Books to Read...

I've always paid attention to Christianity Today's Annual Book Awards. I'm noting here a few award winners for my own future reference.

Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China

"Redeemed by Fire relates with great vividness the story of indigenous Christian movements and their leaders prior to Mao Tse-Tung's China. This remarkable book, based on primary sources, confirms and documents what is often not understood in the West: Indigenous Christianity in China was uniquely Chinese, millenarian, and frequently anti-foreign. This book is essential reading, providing a little foretaste of what the ecclesiastical, theological, and missiological future of the global church might look like."


I probably need (and I do want) to read this to better understand my Chinese seminary students in NYC.

Letters from the Land of Cancer

In the 1980s I was on a committe at Michigan State University that brought Walter to us for a weekend of preentations. I will never forget them! He simply is the best story-teller I have ever heard. I did not know he had cancer. This saddens me.

The Historical Jesus: Five Views
 
How many historical Jesus books can a person read in their lifetime? The answer is: just one more.
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Passionate Intellect: Christian Faith and the Discipleship of the Mind
 
By the brilliant Alister McGrath.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ
 
Yet another Eugene Peterson book. His The Contemplative Pastor makes my top-ten-ever-read list.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters
 
Yet another N.T. Wright book to read.

Atheistic SETI-Religion

When Ward & Brownlee's Rare Earth came out I began presenting the rare earth argument in my logic classes. I thought it was interesting enough to keep logic students from falling asleep. For the most part I was right. What I discovered was a significant resistance to the idea that we might be alone in the universe. Some students seemed to be genuinely upset that I would even suggest this. Their insistence that we could not be alone, even though they had no logical reasoning behind their belief, had a fundamentalist religious quality.

I thought of this as I read Dennis Overbye's "Gazing Afar for Other Earths, and Other Beings." "In a building at NASA’s Ames Research Center here, computers are sifting and resifting the light from 156,000 stars, seeking to find in the flickering of distant suns the first hints that humanity is not alone in the universe." "Kepler" is the name of the 600-million dollar satellite observatory that is monitoring "a kind of Gallup poll of worlds in the cosmos." Why do this? It was this next quote that reminded me of my logic students' response to rare earth theory.

"This is more than just an intellectual exercise, scientists say. Traditional religious images of ourselves as God’s creatures, or even of God, could be in for a rough time if we ever discover pond scum living by completely alien chemical rules on some moon or planet, let alone the Borg — the alien race ruled by a collective mind on “Star Trek” — inhabiting some distant realm." I want to reflect on this idea.

• I have no doubt that "pond scum" exists elsewhere in the universe. Ward and Brownlee agree with that. What I don't understand is how this will give my theology a rough time. How does this follow? 1) Pond scum exists elsewhere in the universe. 2) Therefore humans are not God's creatures. I see no claim of inference from 1 to 2.
• Or: 1) Extraterrestrial pond scum exists. 2) Therefore God as I understand God does not exist. Again, I see no claim of inference between 1 and 2. My "religion" will not be in for a "rough time."
• But why, in the first place, would Overbye think my Jesus-faith would be especially challenged by extraterrestrial pond scum, or even the Borg? (If the Borg actually exist my "religion" will be especially helpful.) Because, I think, this is Atheistic SETI-religion (ASR). If we are alone in the universe then we are truly a "privileged planet," which would threaten ASR adherents. In some sense they must find extraterrestrial life lest they be forced to admit to earth's privileged status. Such a privileged status would mean: humans are very, very special.

Overbye does not tell us why I'd be in for a rough time should an estraterrestrial flatworm be discovered. I'm guessing the reason would be: Human life is no longer special, and earth is not a privileged planet. I think that kind of reasoning is just false. If life exists elsewhere, as I believe it does, my Jesus faith is not rocked. Instead, my Einsteinian wonder increases. If we are all there is, at least in terms of intelligent life, then I stand amazed and feel very, very privileged. Either way I cannot lose.

I'm thinking some of my logic students feel they will be in for a rough religious time if intelligent life only exists on earth.

There's a downside to the Kepler project.

• “We will be faced with hundreds of planet candidates that may never be fully vetted as planets. We just have to live with statistics.” This is "a bitter pill to swallow."
• 
  "At 500 to 3,000 light-years away, Kepler’s planets are too far for intense direct scrutiny."  

Overbye concludes: "If we are alone, on the other hand, “maybe we’re going to go conquer the whole galaxy,” he said. “Nobody’s out there to stop us.”"

RMS Teaching/Preaching Class WILL Meet Tomorrow

RMS's Teaching/Preaching class, taught by moi, will meet tomorrow.

Worship at 9 AM.

Class afterwards.

Global Healing

There is nothing better in life than to have UPS deliver a book from amazon.com to your front door.

That statement is false. Surely there are better things in life than that and, if not, then I need to get a life!

It is a good thing in life to have a package, in which is a book, delivered to one's front door. True. And, tt happened a few minutes ago. Not one, but two books arrived.

The first is The Path of Philosophy: Truth, Wonder, and Distress, by John Marmysz. As a philosophy professor I receive a lot of complimentary texts to evaluate for my classes. Sometimes this marketing strategy works, since I chose new texts for both my logic and philosophy of religion classes as a result of receiving review copies. I started reading the Marmysz book - there are some sections that will interest me.

The second is Candy Gunther Brown's awaited Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing. This book, in its entirety, will be required reading for anyone seriously interested in divine healing.

I'm now reading Candy's opening chapter: "Introduction: Pentecostalism and the Globalization of Illness and Healing." She begins by citing the Pew Forum's "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals" (2006). Here are a few points.

• More than a quarter of the world's 2 billion Christians identify themselves as Pentecostals of Charismatics.
• More than any other factor, divine healing distinguishes Pentecostals and Charismatics from other Christians.
• In the 10 countries surveyed, more than 70% of the Pentecostals in 8 out of 10 "reported having personally experienced or witnessed the divine healing of an illness or injury."
• In the U.S. "62% of Pentecostals reported personal experience with divine healing."
• "According to other polls, 70-80 percent of the total U.S. population believes in divine healing."
• "In the Latin American, Asian, and African countries where pentecostal growth is  most rapidly, as many as 80-90 percent of first-generation Christians attribute their conversions primarily to having received divine healing for themselves or a family member." (3)
• "As multidirectional processes of globalization accelerate and as Christians in the global South increasingly influence North American Christianity, divine healing will likely become even more prominent in U.S. churches in the twenty-first century." (Ib.)

This is going to be a valuable book for me. Sometimes I shake my head and see where, theologically, I have come from. Out of no background or experience in the area of healing (in spite of the multiple incidences of healing in the four Gospels) I am now in the midst of it, and loving it.

Countdown to Furious Love Event at Redeemer

It's coming.

See here for details.

Gordon Fee on Tom Wright and other authors

Gordon Fee - his current favorite author is N.T. Wright.

Craig Keener on power of the Bible

One More Evening in Sioux Falls

Photo by H. Benner

Linda, Holly and I are loving being in Sioux Falls at the Sioux Falls Regional Outpouring this weekend. We're leading worship, I'm speaking on John 14-16 and staying connected to Jesus as the #1 thing Jesus-followers are to do, and we've eaten too much incredible food (Minerva's salad bar & their addictive burnt cream custard, a fabulous buffet today that ended with bananas foster). So I've grown this weekend.

Tonight is our last meeting. We wake at 4 AM to watch our 6 AM flight - direct from SF to Detroit. Back home at 9 AM.

For all of us this has been an amazing January of ministry!